Rally Comrades and Intimidate Foe

[Shane]

Hi guys,

Rally Comrades: I find that nobody ever uses this. The return appears to be too low for the action investment and chance of Hope loss. What do folks think about doubling the gain to 2, 4 or 6? The Heart score for Extraordinary success would not be doubled.

Intimidate Foes: Also, hardly used. Same detail? Double? How would that work?

Regards,

Shane

[Woodclaw]

Hi guys,

Rally Comrades: I find that nobody ever uses this. The return appears to be too low for the action investment and chance of Hope loss. What do folks think about doubling the gain to 2, 4 or 6? The Heart score for Extraordinary success would not be doubled.

Intimidate Foes: Also, hardly used. Same detail? Double? How would that work?

Regards,

Shane

I haven't tested Rally Comrades enough so far, but I think it's a reasonable return for what it costs. On the subject of Intimidate, instead, I think that it gave a too low return because it's a single target effect, gicing it the option of affecting multiple enemies (all those in close combat with the character perhaps) would make much more interesting especially against Craven opponents.

[Shane]

On the subject of Intimidate Foe, it isn't single-target, but the Hate loss is assigned as a pool as the Loremaster sees fit. We only had Intimidate Foe used in one of ours sessions, using flaming brands to drive off a night wight that was too fearsome to fight (with two companions using Intimidate Foe each rounds it took a few rounds to drive it off).

It's interesting that you see Rally Comrades as reasonable. I wonder why it seems under-valued to us. One player suggested that the 2/4/6 would apply if a single companion is targeted, and the 1/2/3 if it is used for all companions are the target as per the rules.

Regards,

Shane

[Yusei]

My group often uses Intimidate Foe, they seem to think it's often better/faster/safer than fighting. I tend to agree.

[Shane]

My group often uses Intimidate Foe, they seem to think it's often better/faster/safer than fighting. I tend to agree.

I'm curious about this; unless I read it really wrong you are still engaged in combat and receiving attacks when using the maneuver. Do your group as a whole think the return for the action investment is better than an attack roll, or is it one or two characters built to do well at the maneuver?

I could see that in the case of Craven creatures a few rounds of intimidation can do wonders for the number of foes you are facing, and that wearying non-Craven creatures by depleting their Hate is a huge plus in terms of softening them up, but even so I am surprised as to intimidate you have to put yourself at the highest risk of being hit and those hits can soon add up.

I'm looking at it deeply, because I don't want to house rule anything that doesn't need it.

Regards,

Shane

[Yusei]

Yes, they do sometimes use the maneuver during combat, not just at the beginning. I don't think they all know what it does: they know it makes the opponent lose Hate, but they're a bit fuzzy on what Hate does. They know some orcs flee when they're out of hate, but they know not all opponents do.

What I mean is that they did not analyse combat to decide whether it was worth it, they did it by trial and error, and they found it useful. It may still be a bad choice, system wise.

[Shane]

That's interesting. I haven't told my group what it does exactly, either, but the few times it has been tried they saw no benefit over fighting, with the sole exception of the fight against the Wight with a Fear of Fire when they used burning branches to drive it away (a few rounds of intimidate foe when it is Craven).

I absolutely think that it's better to go with what feels right over the most optimal combat outcome, but if players see no benefit at all from an action other than attacking, all that will happen is "roll to hit, rinse repeat". That doesn't work for me. I have my group at the point where they will maneuver for position and do stuff like that (giving them battle rolls to earn extra battle dice as the fight goes on at the expense of an attack action) and they have embraced it because there are benefits to not just rolling to hit (getting a balance between attack rolls and other options that works). I want to see that happen with these two maneuvers (but only if a house rule has benefit, and not just change for the sake of change).

Regards,

Shane

[fbnaulin]

My players use Combat Actions often, just in last session they used 2 times each of those mentioned.

Endurance amount recovered with Rally Comrades is not low as it seems, and when used it in a row, could be very helpful. And as Yusei says, the multitarget aspect of Intimidate Foe makes it very effective against enemies with Craven and low Hate points, even they could learn to consider it against major enemies that fuel dangerous abilities using their Hate.

[Corvo]

Rally comrade on extraordinary success gives back 3 endurance, OR HEART, whichever is higher.
With Heart 7 is pretty huge.

[Woodclaw]

My players use Combat Actions often, just in last session they used 2 times each of those mentioned.

Endurance amount recovered with Rally Comrades is not low as it seems, and when used it in a row, could be very helpful. And as Yusei says, the multitarget aspect of Intimidate Foe makes it very effective against enemies with Craven and low Hate points, even they could learn to consider it against major enemies that fuel dangerous abilities using their Hate.

After a bit of testing I still have issues with the effectiveness of Intimidate RAW. In my head Intimidate should be a minion swatter action that allow to remove minor creatures from the combat, but it tend to be quite ineffective in my eyes.